Technology has been known where a panoramic image is generated by photographing a subject several times while rotating/scanning a camera and by composing a plurality of images. The image to be the basis of a panoramic image shall be hereinafter referred to as an “element image”. When obtaining this panoramic image, it is necessary to rotate/scan the camera in a plane parallel to a lens optical axis. This rotation/scanning is performed manually in many cases. However, if the camera is rotated manually, it is difficult to maintain its positional accuracy and rotation angle accuracy, and thus it is difficult to obtain a favorable panoramic image.
In order to solve the above problems, a camera platform dedicated to panoramic photographing is proposed. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-324380, for example, discloses a platform on which a motor for rotating a camera body is loaded. By using such a platform exclusively for panoramic photographing, the camera body can be accurately rotated and a favorable panoramic image can be obtained.
Also, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-229290 discloses a camera in which a photographing portion of the camera and a main body are constructed separately and both the main body and the photographing portion are relatively rotated by driving means built in the main body and the photographing portion. At the time of panoramic photographing by this camera, the main body is fixed to a tripod stand and the photographing portion is rotated/scanned with respect to the main body by the built-in driving means.
However, all of the above related arts have a problem that a user cannot use it casually. That is, the platform dedicated to panoramic photographing is not only complicated in installation work and the like but also extremely expensive, which is not suitable for daily enjoyment of panoramic photographing. Also, the camera described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-229290 requires cumbersome preparation such as use of a tripod at the time of panoramic photographing, which is not necessarily easy to use.
It is therefore an advantage of the present invention to provide a camera which can capture an element image of a favorable panoramic image more easily.